[ti:North Korea Weak Link in Fight Against Swine Flu] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]South Korea is creating traps and using unmanned aircraft and expert gunmen [00:06.93]in an effort to stop wild pigs from spreading the disease swine flu from North Korea. [00:15.52]African swine flu is deadly to pigs but is not a threat to humans. [00:23.44]The virus has killed large numbers of pigs in many Asian countries. [00:30.32]Experts believe wild hogs are a main reason for its spread. [00:36.80]Officials say North Korea has ignored the South's [00:41.32]repeated calls for joint efforts to stop the disease. [00:47.80]South Korea has destroyed about 154,500 pigs in the past month. [00:56.68]All were taken from farms near the North Korean border. [01:02.48]North Korea has not released any detailed reports on the disease. [01:08.51]But South Korea's intelligence agency says [01:12.69]that pig herds in one North Korea province were almost totally lost. [01:20.28]North Korea observers in Seoul say pork prices in markets there have increased. [01:29.64]North Korea first reported an outbreak in May [01:33.71]after the disease spread widely in neighboring China. [01:39.80]Chinese officials say farms in the country have slaughtered [01:44.25]at least 1.17 million pigs in an effort to control the disease since August 2018. [01:54.20]North Korea told the World Organization for Animal Health [01:58.91]that 77 of 99 pigs at a farm in Jagang province died of the disease. [02:07.32]The remaining 22 pigs were destroyed. [02:11.06]North Korea said it is fighting hard to stop the disease's spread, [02:17.15]but has not reported any other outbreaks. [02:21.68]Suh Hoon is director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. [02:28.48]He told lawmakers in a private meeting last month [02:33.09]that African swine flu has spread across North Korea. [02:39.48]He reportedly added that groups of wild pigs in an area north of the capital, Pyongyang, [02:46.63]had been "annihilated" and people were complaining about the lack of meat. [02:53.56]South Korean officials confirmed the first swine flu outbreak [02:58.47]in the town of Paju on September seventeenth. [03:03.16]Since then, officials have reported at least 13 more cases. [03:09.44]Failure to contain the disease would be severely damaging for South Korea's pork industry. [03:17.36]The situation would be much worse for the North, where food supplies are often limited. [03:25.72]South Korean officials say North Korea had about 2.6 million pigs [03:32.48]in 14 government-run or cooperative farms before the disease's outbreak. [03:38.99]Cho Chung-hui is a former North Korean official in charge of farm animal issues. [03:47.16]He fled to South Korea in 2011. [03:52.08]He says pork makes up as much as 80 percent of protein eaten by North Korea's 25 million people. [04:02.72]Many North Koreans raise and sell a pig or two each year to be able to buy rice. [04:12.08]Cho said a 100-kilogram hog can be sold to buy about 150 kilograms of rice. [04:21.04]That is enough for a family for a year. [04:26.40]He said North Korean animal health officials and farms do not kill animals even if they are sick. [04:36.12]African swine fever spreads easily through contact with infected animals, animal waste [04:43.18]and contaminated substances such as food, clothing and vehicles. [04:50.16]The 248-kilometer border between North and South Korea is the most heavily secured in the world. [04:58.76]However, South Korean officials and experts say wild pigs [05:04.04]could still enter in and out of North Korea by swimming across rivers. [05:11.56]Cho said heavy rains from a powerful ocean storm in September [05:16.88]likely caused contaminated soil and water from North Korea to enter the South. [05:25.24]Insects and rats could also spread the virus, he said. [05:31.76]Whatever the source of the South Korean outbreaks, [05:35.10]experts say controlling movements of wild pigs is very important. [05:42.40]I'm Jonathan Evans. [05:44.60]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM